Well if I'd read this book before i did my final year of high school then I would have glided rather than snow plowed through chemistry at university. Helpful if not three decades too late to give me additional and alternative views of the periodic table. Thank you Sam

Listening to it all at once would be tedious, however, it is an excellent audiobook to listen to one or two chapters at a time. The storytelling is well done, the science is kept accessible, and the chosen narrator fits very well and is very easy to follow.

This book ignites in me a childlike fascination of the elements. The work is smart and inspiring, all while managing to cast a dreamy glaze over the periodic table's building blocks. It's a fabulous read and the narrator's voice is perfect for it. A+ in every category.

There is much to enjoy here. He jumps around the periodic table, which is fine as he does that to fit a narrative. However, some mistakes are just too bad to ignore. Galaxy instead of solar system, really? Plus, doing a lot of research on the chemistry and physics, his geological explanations are very bad. With a bit more work and a better editor(?), the book would have been much improved.

This book was very interesting, the beginning was awesome because it made sense. There are certain parts in the book that explain to much science that make no sense to me and gets off subject from the elements sometimes. The narrator did awesome!

Ok, I really don't hate science. I just don't understand it very well or care about certain things. Like types of rocks, clouds, or kingdoms.

But I found this book describing the meticulous work to discover and claim each element on the periodic table to be very entertaining. Even the decades long fight over what the table would look like was interesting.

Mostly because it wasn't, in the end, about the elements. It was about the people who slaved away to discover them and maybe grab a slice of immortality. Many of these brilliant scientists were not famous, rich, or even well respected. Yet their personal stories made me learn about the elements they dis covered.